Stabilisation Unit Annual Review 2018/19 1 Contents Executive summary .......................................................................................... 3 Year in numbers ............................................................................................... 4 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 5 Enablers: Making it Happen ............................................................................. 6 Outcome 1: Policy into Delivery ....................................................................... 7 Outcome 2: Strengthening International Partnerships ..................................... 8 Outcome 3: Learning from Experience ............................................................ 8 Value for Money, Risk and Financial Performance ........................................ 10 2 Executive summary Throughout 2018/19 the Stabilisation Unit (SU) further embedded itself in the HMG policy process, ensuring early engagement on priority national security issues. We agreed workplans with eight National Security Strategy Implementation Groups (NSSIGs), delivering directly against National Security Council (NSC) priorities and objectives. SU has continued to bring together civilian, police and military expertise and staff from 12 government departments. We have also established new capability on transnational threats, providing critical delivery capacity for the international Serious Organised Crime (SOC) and CONTEST (Countering Terrorism) strategies. The SOC Joint Analysis ensures a fusion approach, providing HMG’s most comprehensive understanding of the international SOC threat as well as identifying early wins in combatting it. We have built on our thought leadership with the Elite Bargains and Political Deals research and the UK Approach to Stabilisation Guide. These have both been positively received and have proved instrumental in shaping the approach of international partners. Particularly, the SU relationship with Germany has strengthened via initiatives such as joint analysis, advice and a German secondee in the SU. 374 participants from across HMG, the UK military and international partners attended our specialised training on conflict and stability, including courses on gender, peace & security and monitoring & evaluation. On the civil-military side we provided 960 adviser days to 14 military exercises, ran sessions on at least 10 separate training courses, presented 45 lectures and inputted to four prioritised NATO and UK military doctrine products. We deployed 738 members of our civilian roster and core staff to more than 40 locations around the world in support of HMG policy and programming on national security priorities. Our roster of deployable civilian experts has grown with the recruitment of 90 new members, primarily in support of our growing offer on transnational threats. We now have 533 experts on our roster. The rebranded Government Partnerships International (GPI) has worked with partners across the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan and Iraq and has become a critical enabler of the wider Department for International Development (DFID) Partnership for Development (P4D) programme, brokering partnerships between HMG institutions and overseas governments. Peter McDermott Acting Deputy Director, Stabilisation Unit 3 Stabilisation Unit: 2018/19 in numbers Our budget: £12.82m Our People: We are made up of staff from 12 Government Departments, as well as serving police and military personnel and members of staff seconded to us from international partners. We agreed workplans with 8 National Security Strategy Implementation Groups, ensuring we are delivering directly against National Security priorities and objectives. We continued to grow our roster of deployable civilian experts, recruiting 90 new members – primarily in support of our growing offer on transnational threats. We now have over 530 experts on our roster. 374 participants from across HMG, the UK military and international partners attended our specialised training on conflict and stability, including courses on gender, peace and security, and monitoring & evaluation. We deployed over 738 members of our civilian roster and core staff to 40+ locations around the globe in support of HMG policy and programming on national security priorities. 5 Serious and Organised Crime Joint Analyses examining SOC in over 20 countries completed and disseminated across government. 4 Introduction The Stabilisation Unit is an agile, cross-government unit providing expertise to build stability, prevent conflict and meet security challenges internationally. We support the integrated co-ordination of UK Government activities in fragile and conflict-affected states by being a centre of expertise on conflict, stabilisation, security and justice. We recruit, train and deploy qualified and experienced Deployable Civilian Experts (DCEs) to support UK Government activities in fragile and conflict- affected states, and to multilateral missions on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Our team captures and analyses evidence from practical experience to identify and share best practice, inform the UK Government’s strategy and policy development, improve our operational delivery and increase the impact of our work. The National Security Strategy Implementation Group (NSSIG) for Conflict & Stabilisation is responsible for setting overall priorities for SU. Those priorities are captured in a series of regional and thematic work plans agreed with the relevant NSSIG Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) (see figure 1 below). These workplans inform the four key strands of activity, articulated in the SU Business Plan, that are in place for SU to deliver results. These are: • Enablers: The enabling functions that ensure we have the right platform, people and resources to find the right deployable civilian experts, with the right experience, deploy them safely, with the right equipment, to the right place at the right time. Every time. • Policy into delivery: Ensuring our expertise informs UK Government conflict, stability, security and justice policies and programmes in NSC priority countries and strengthens the capability of partner government institutions through better reform interventions. • Strengthening international partnerships: Ensuring UK Government efforts to improve the international system are strengthened by SU expertise and relationships with multilateral organisations and bilateral partners. • Learning from experience: Supporting the UK Government to learn lessons from experience and apply best practice to conflict, stability, security, justice and institutional interventions. This annual report provides a summary of achievements and impact against each of these areas. 5 Figure 1: SU Governance arrangements Enablers: Making it happen Establishing a stronger digital presence: Our digital presence has significantly increased through our use of social media. Our branding and internal communications has also been a major focus throughout 2018/19. Our Twitter account was established in December 2018 and has since generated over 27,000 impressions. Our engagement via LinkedIn has also increased substantially with an increase in followers by over 300% to more than 4,000 followers. Ultimately this means we are reaching more people with our key messages, increasing understanding of stabilisation. Growing our civilian roster: We continued to develop our roster of DCEs, recruiting 90 additional members in 2018/19, bringing the total number of experts on the roster to over 530. A key achievement over 2018/19 has been to establish, with flat costs, a substantial cadre of expertise on transnational threats. This includes expertise on countering violent extremism, counter terrorism, serious and organised crime, and migration and modern slavery. We also ensured our operational training offer prepared our civilian, police and military experts for multiple eventualities, responding to unique challenges such as the need for Maritime Security Training to the UN Verification and Inspection Mission (UNVIM) in Djibouti, and Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) training for monitors posted to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Ukraine. Deploying and ensuring the security and welfare of deployed civilian experts and secondees to multilateral missions: SU’s deployments team 6 supported the deployment of over 730 members of our civilian roster and civil servant staff to more than 40 locations around the world in support of UK Government policy and programming on national security priorities. We have continued to provide leadership on Duty of Care, chairing the 5th Duty of Care Roundtable in Vienna, attended by over 100 representatives from more than 20 organisations. Policy into delivery Whitehall departments, embassies and country offices directly request support from SU for high-level policy advice, scoping missions, programme design and implementation, monitoring and evaluation and tailored strategy, programme and performance reviews. Throughout 2018/19 we have provided: Integrated analysis and evidence on Focus on Yemen conflict and security issues: We facilitated analyses of conflict drivers and dynamics in Yemen has been a priority for SU Somalia, Pakistan, Libya, Somaliland, OPTs, throughout 2018/19. Burma, Sudan, Central Asia, South Caucasus and Moldova, Iraq, Yemen and We provided advice to UK and the Western Balkans. international partners on the conflict